OITS
A mission-design and global-optimisation system developed by Adam Hibberd for searching complex interplanetary trajectories.
What OITS does
OITS represents an interplanetary mission as a sequence of planetary encounters, coast arcs and manoeuvres. It then searches the resulting parameter space for trajectories that satisfy the mission objective while reducing quantities such as launch energy, flight time or total delta-v.
Multiple gravity assists
Model encounter sequences involving repeated planetary flybys and deep-space manoeuvres.
Global optimisation
Search large, discontinuous design spaces in which good solutions may be separated by many poor ones.
Flexible objectives
Explore trade-offs between mission duration, launch conditions, arrival velocity and propulsive requirements.
Research workflow
Generate candidate architectures, refine them numerically and compare alternative mission strategies.
From question to trajectory
Applications
The software has been used for interstellar-object interception studies and for demanding reference problems such as Cassini-type multi-gravity-assist trajectories. Its purpose is not simply to reproduce a known route, but to expose viable architectures that may not be apparent in advance.